


It Talks in my Sleep

by DonovanS



Series: Paranormal AUs [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Canonical Character Death, Ghost!Jim, Haunting, Love Confessions, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Paranormal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-11
Updated: 2013-06-05
Packaged: 2017-12-11 13:09:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/799089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DonovanS/pseuds/DonovanS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After his boss' untimely death, Sebastian takes the reins as the head of their organization. It goes rather smoothly for him, all things considered, if you ignore the fact his overworking might just have made him lose his mind and start seeing 'ghosts.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Occurrences

_“I’ve set it up so you’ll be fine in the end. -JMx”_

The last text Jim had sent his ‘personal sniper’ before he walked up to that roof. 

Like most of the things he said, it turned out to be a lie.

Things were certainly not ‘fine’ for Sebastian Moran.

Or ‘S. Moriarty’ as he was now referred. 

Jim had set him up to take his place. The mind behind the crime. It was the best paying job you could ask for but it drained Sebastian like nothing before.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t patient or talented at it, honestly he juggled it all like it was nothing. It simply left him no time to be human.

Humans celebrated promotions, took pleasure in hobbies and, most of all, mourned their lost loved ones.

Sebastian got none of this. 

He had work. More and more work everyday as the conflict between ‘Richard’ and Holmes hit the papers.

With Jim dead it was up to his replacement to cook up palpable lies for the sheep he’d be leading and cook he did. Day and night.

He lead the same men as always of course, though now they looked a great deal more terrified when he entered the room to brief them. The anger on his face when one had informed him of ‘Holmes sightings’ in the lower ranks practically made a rookie hitman piss himself. 

Maybe that wasn’t purely from his position though….maybe mentions of Holmes just brought out something more animal-like than most things.   
Not that it mattered, the more he worked, the less human he felt anyway. And the less human he felt the more he began to understand his late boss’ obsessive nature. He felt like some kind of carnivorous reptile, standing still and waiting for his prey to draw near. It was like being back in India only even more disconnected. 

His nights dragged on and his body suffered for it, within the first two months he’d developed a bleeding ulcer and chronic migraines from the glare of Jim’s laptop screen. His mind wasn’t doing much better, judging by the strange occurrences in the flat he couldn’t quite explain any way other than as insomnia-triggered hallucinations. 

The first few weren’t particularly mind blowing. He’d put his morning cuppa on the coffee table before fetching the laptop from its place on the kitchen table, only to come back and find the cup gone, moved or completely changed. The weirdest one was when he came back to find his black tea with milk turned to bright green tea so filled with sugar he could see it forming a sweet film on the bottom of the cup.

Lights would turn on the moment he went to bed for the night and the TV would switch channels the second he looked away from it. 

The most irritating though, was Jim’s old iPod. 

He’d kept the thing, mostly out’ve ‘sentiment,’ and left it in its deck on the end table to charge. Sometimes he’d listen to it while he cooked, remember times when Jim had spent the night. Nothing romantic or even platonic really happened between them, he’d just need a ‘change of scenery’ and trusted Sebastian enough to sleep around him.

However, often times when he was working on an incredible difficult ‘case,’ Sebastian would be startled out of his thoughts by the thing suddenly blasting Jim’s favorite songs at top volume. No amount of button pressing would turn it off either, Sebastian had tried. The most success he had was the song changing.

“Take me home tonight! I don’t want to let you go ‘til you see the light-“

Click.

_“I’ve been watchin’ you for days now baby! I just love your sexy ways now baby!”_

Click.

_“You are the last drink I never should drunk. You are the body hidden in the trunk.You are the habit I can’t seem to kick-”_

Click. 

_“From the cities to the swamplands, from the highways to the hills, our love has never had a leg to stand on, from the aspirins to the cross-tops to the Elevils-“_

It was infuriating and around the fifth time Sebastian read the same email he lost his patience with the device. In one angry move he tore the plug from the wall. The music didn’t stop. 

_“But I will walk down to the end with you, if you will come all the way down with me…”_

He left it in the hall that night, privately thanking whoever inventing soundproofing. It continued to play regardless, well into the daylight hours. 

After that, the strange moments became even more frequent and bizarre. 

One morning Sebastian woke up to Jim’s ringtone coming from his phone, that obnoxious BeeJee’s garbage. No one was calling him. He later found his cufflinks replaced with the ones Jim had bought him, the ones he’d lost during a business trip to Munich the year before. 

After that he woke to the fridge wide open, bits of food arranged on the kitchen island as though someone had been collecting ingredients for breakfast. Moran had immediately pulled out his Browning and scoured the flat. 

He turned up nothing and had to conclude it was his own sleep eating because nothing else made sense. 

The next night he came home from a hit, clean kill, no one of major importance, just a loose end he wanted to tie himself, and found his front door unlocked. 

He readied his Browning again, the sound of his shower on and Jim’s iPod blasting from the loo flooded his ears the moment he entered. 

Moving slowly towards the small hallway he kicked the door open, ready to brutally end whoever dared to enter his personal space, let alone meddle with Jim’s things.

The noise stopped. The shower was empty, it was dry as a bone and didn’t even appear to have been on. The only thing different from when he’d left earlier was Jim’s iPod and deck, sitting on the sink but silent. 

Moran had to conclude he’d moved it earlier and forgotten. The noises were just…just auditory hallucinations. He’d overworked himself. Of course.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt to move. Somewhere far away, out’ve London, in the country, with lots of land to let dogs out to attack intruders. 

Without that damned Satanic apple product anywhere near him.

Within the week Sebastian did just that, finding a large house in Northamptonshire with more land than he could possibly need. He could control the business from his computer now, like Jim did, and hoped he’d maybe be able to get some sleep. No more hits weighing on his mind and an entire pack of guard dogs, big and mean things, prowling the property at night. 

Moving in was easier than he’d thought and the spacious sitting room had plenty of room for both his living room furniture and the large collection of Jim’s crap he’d been keeping in his office. 

It was a rather successful day and, for the first time since he’d started in his new position, Sebastian felt genuinely exhausted and not simply ‘burnt out.’ 

He’d crawled into bed at around 10pm in nothing but a pair of sweats and had fallen asleep just about the moment his head hit the pillow. It was amazingly satisfying and delightfully human. Peaceful sleep in a life so devoid of peace at all.

Then, around 3am, the Sniper felt a pressure near the foot of the bed, someone kneeling near his feet, as though they were debating waking him. He was so relaxed he barely noticed it.

“Mmm, boss, go’bed…” Sebastian mumbled, barely conscience and uninterested in ruining his perfect night by missing out on sleep in favor of work again. Jim could do it himself, he could code just fine, the lazy arse. 

The pressure on the bed ebbed for a moment, before returning closer to the criminal’s head, just behind his shoulderblades. Sitting mere centimeters from him. He could feel what felt like fingers stroking his hair, followed by the person laying down with him in an almost spooning position. 

“Sebastian…I don’t like your new bed.” Jim’s voice was quiet and soft, he could feel the warm breath in his ear before thin lips followed it, pressed against the side of his head. “It’s too stiff.”

“Mmm…So’re you.” Sebastian laughed, slowly coming out of his barely conscience state. Stiff like him, ha, get it? Because Jim was dead.

That realization hit him like a punch to the gut and he shot bolt upright.

The pressure on the bed and the warmth against him vanished, Sebastian was alone.

Completely alone in the dark with his heart pounding in his chest.

How did insomnia driven illness affect him when he was asleep? 

And what kind of nightmare felt like that?

Much to his frustration, moving did little to stop the occurrences’ and sleeping didn’t help either. 

The possibility that he’d actually lost his mind crept up immediately but went largely ignored.

Even if he had, somewhere along the line, gone irretrievably out of his head, it wasn’t really effecting his job anymore. It was, at most, an annoyance. 

Hell, the reappearance of Jim’s iPod sent a chill up his spine but something about the familiarity of it, the same songs that Jim used to twirl and tap to as he worked, eased the very chill it had created. 

Even the pressure on the bed, the warmth against his back, became routine. Every night around 3.

If he could survive months in the jungle and 15 years of working for Jim Moriarty, he could survive a little madness.

The fifth week in his new home, with his new routine, Sebastian found himself once again sleeping peacefully. Work was going well, though several of his lower level clients had dropped off the face of the Earth, that was nothing new. Chalk it up to desperation, everybody felt the urge to run sometimes. 

He found he actually enjoyed the strange, warm presence in his room at night, at least now that he’d stopped trying to shoot at it, thinking it a human intruder. He’d even taken to referring to it as ‘Jim.’ Usually before bed, when telling it not to wake him up. It never worked and it always came, sometimes making a bigger fuss than others.

Sometimes even, when the sniper was in that twilight state between sleeping and waking, he’d swear he heard it speaking back in Jim’s actual voice. It couldn’t have been though, even if he hadn’t literally bitten a bullet, because this Jim said things the real Jim never would.

He’d press himself against his second-in-command’s back and beg for everything from forgiveness to attention, sobbing out apology after apology with everything from ‘I didn’t realize-’ to ‘If I had known-’ and Sebastian would wake with his chest tight and moisture on the back of his neck. 

Finally he gave in one night, barely awake and unwilling to be woken by the strange feeling again. 

He rolled over, unconsciously wrapping an arm around the ‘person’ against him.

“Go’sleep boss…”

“I can’t, Moran!” the voice replied before continuing on another sophomoric rant about how he should’ve known what Sherlock was doing and he was rotting away in his boredom and no one understood-

Sebastian cut him off, pressing his lips to Jim’s and letting out a small, self satisfied growl when they instinctively parted, letting the sniper’s tongue slide in. He tasted like copper but Sebastian had always rather enjoyed that taste. Jim wrapped his arms around Sebastian’s neck, pulling him closer, moving their lips together like he’d never been snogged in his life and was trying desperately to just keep things going. Maybe he was, Sebastian wasn’t privy to that kind of information nor was he awake enough to care. 

Still, that feeling in his chest didn’t abate and, in the moment he pulled away for air, he decided to try something else.

If this was a dream, some fucked up illusion, than saying it wouldn’t matter, now would it? 

“God Jim, I loved you so much.” 

The body in his arms froze, fingers dug into his shoulders. Sebastian didn’t need to open his eyes to feel the pair that were focused on him now.

“Moran, I….”

“You didn’t, I mean, you couldn’t really return it, _I know._ Boss, I just…” He rested his forehead against Jim’s, he could feel a warmth there but the absence of a pulse was still disconcerting. “I wish I coulda toldja…before you…I miss ya, you know? Your stupid fuckin’ complaints ‘n your dancing ‘n even the mood swings. I’d give it all up, one snap of the fingers, to have that fucking shit back in my life.” 

The breath caught in Sebastian’s chest, realizing for the first time himself the extent of the devotion he’d had for his employer. The words he’d never planned to speak, that he’d shoved to the back of his mind to fester and turn septic. 

Jim remained silent. Just a pressure on the bed and a strange warmth against his hired man’s chest. 

“…Sebastian…” 

The name was spoken in a hushed, disturbed tone.

And then it was gone. 

No more voice, no more warmth. Sebastian’s body hit the bed, no longer supported by anything but air.

For the first time in too long, Sebastian Moran actually was _completely alone._


	2. Lurker

“So, I guess I killed the mood last night…” There was no answer.

-

It had been weeks since Sebastian had made his little on-the-spot confession, since his fucked up feelings bubbled up his throat and out his mouth like candy-heart vomit and the presence he’d spoken to vanished into nothingness. 

No real occurrences had happened since. No disappearing tea, no self-switching channels on the telly, no iPod from Hell. 

Well, he still listened to it, but it never played on its own.

Once and while he caught glimpses of course, a face in the bathroom mirror behind him in the mornings, a thin little silhouette hogging the love seat when he got home at night, a twitchy, uncomfortable feeling of being watched and analyzed as he tossed and turned in bed.

Just nothing substantial. Nothing he could touch, record, document…It made the whole house seem all the more…unwelcoming. 

“Sir.” Sebastian greeted the silhouette in his peripheral as he entered the kitchen. It never responded, never appeared outside of the corner of his eye. Still, it was better than nothing and at least he could still feel it…watching him from the doorway between the kitchen and the bedroom hall. 

Sebastian made breakfast and got ready for work in silence. He ate quickly and didn’t even bother trying to continue his imaginary conversation with his late employer. He had an important meeting about Holmes awaiting him in London and he needed to look properly threatening, not depressed about a one-sided talk with a dead man. His best suit, cufflinks that were certainly not from Jim and a pair of polished dress shoes he hated more than anything he’d ever worn. 

He looked every bit the part of Moriarty, right down to the deadness in his eyes.

He collected his briefcase and laptop with grim dedication and headed towards the door. His hand had just taken hold of the knob when a sound caught his ears, Jim’s ipod switching on in the living room and the blurred screech of sped up words, like a cassette being fast forwarded. A soft, female voice suddenly took over.

_“Bye bye baby. Don’t be long. I’ll worry about you while you’re gone. I’ll think of you in my dreams. You’ll never know just what you mean to me…”_

The music stopped.

Sebastian’s knuckles had turned white as his grip tighten.

“Jim…” he spoke to the empty hall, just loud enough to carry into the next room. “I have a meeting. I’ll be back around 9…If you want to, do something or…I don’t know.”

Silence. 

He rubbed his temples and sighed, letting his head rest on the door. He really was losing it.

“‘Kay. Bring home something Asian, it’s been ages.” 

Moran’s briefcase hit the floor and he turned to stare at the doorway to his sitting room. With a sudden spark of adrenaline he rushed to it at a speed he’d not realized he could achieve in his business wear.

Empty. 

Nothing. 

But Jim’s voice had been clear, if barely attentive, the same tone he’d use when he was busying himself with silly apps on his Droid or rereading Watson’s blog for the umpteenth time. He’d heard it, right? He got a response from…something.

Sebastian inhaled deeply through his nose, leaning against the sofa for support. He could still feel something, that odd presence, the sensation of someone watching him. 

“Miso soup, er, something like that?” He waited for a moment in silence, his head bowed and a hand over his eyes.

“Yeah, something like that.”

Sebastian’s head shot up at the distant voice to his left, the direction of the kitchen.

“Jim?” He called out to it, feeling slightly less insane but all the more unsettled.

No response. 

“Jim, you here?” Sebastian cleared his throat and spoke a bit clearer. “Sir, please stop pissing around.”

The TV switched on of its own volition and the Colonel jumped, knocking his knee on the end-table and cursing under his breath.

Arse. 

Moran straightened his back and composed himself. Work. Work always came first. 

He left the house as quickly as possible and slipped into the driver’s seat of his Jag. He had over an hour of driving ahead of him, he needed to calm down, regain some of the sanity that had apparently leaked out’ve his head at some point since Jim’s death before he had to deal with business. He needed to not think about that voice, that warm presence in his bed, the words he’d blurted out like a damned idiot weeks before and especially the fact the Jim had apparently come back _even after hearing them._


End file.
